Byron Dorgan: “I thank Senator Conrad. What I would like to do at the beginning is to ask a few questions and see if I can get some…”

“I thank Senator Conrad. What I would like to do at the beginning is to ask a few questions and see if I can get some information from Senator Conrad. It is interesting to me, we now have this budget agreement on the floor of the Senate. We have a Senate that is divided 50/50--50 Democrats, 50 Republicans, elected by the American people to come and serve. We have a Budget Committee, and that Budget Committee worked and produced a budget. We had a vote on the floor. Then we had a conference between the Senate and the House. I ask Senator Conrad whether, as the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee of the Senate, he was part of the conference. Was he, along with the other Democrats, part of the budget conference which produced this conference report?”